$600 for That?

A few of us have some pretty refined tastes here at Chicagoist. Among things we've probably overpaid for are dinners, movie screenings, concerts, sporting events, and computer equipment.

But $600 for a makeup job? We don't even think the girliest girl on the staff would spend that much. Yet that's what Governor Blagojevich did as recently as March, when he went to Crystal Lake-based makeup artist Deborah Lee for a touch-up prior to giving his annual budget address. Judging from the current impasse in Springfield, that was probably money well spent.

Or not, seeing as how our governor/Elvis impersonator footed the bill on the taxpayers' dime. In fact, according to the Sun-Times piece, Lee received $2700 last year for work done for Blagojevich. She wouldn't comment on her March work for Blagojevich, but we know what she did, and it really brings out his dreamy eyes. Once the report went public, the men's men in the state legislature had a field day with it.

There are a lot of things on which we could justify spending $600. Normally these things include rent or bills. You know, the necessities we need to pay so we don't wind up a part of the nouveau homeless, blogging on a street corner while our dog Emmy gives passers-by the sad eyes so we can keep ourselves in kibble. It isn't uncommon for politicians to get (and receive) haircuts and makeup jobs that cost up to seventy percent of our rent. Do they even think of what the common man might perceive when they read the cost of such work in the papers and then wonder why there's a disconnect between our elected officials and the people they're elected to serve?

Governor Blagojevich's Glamour Shot courtesy of www.nndb.com.